Look at all that iron!

[fueledbykava]

So I was making my KWK Pouni Ono today and noticed with my naked eye a lot of black sediment at the bottom, and being the science nerd I am and wondering if it could be iron, I took one of my neodymium magnets and stuck it on the bottom of the bowl until the kava settled.
Check out all that iron! I hope that's not an unhealthy amount

 

[kasa_balavu]

Interesting. I assume this was from traditional grind powder.
A quick google shows that 200mg iron supplement tablets contain the equivalent of 65mg of elemental iron.
I wonder how many milligrams there are in your photo.

It would be interesting to try this with other kava products from KWK and other vendors.

 

[kavakarma]

Magnesium too, great for sleep, usually there is more black minerals, like people tell me to consume magnesium and I'm like naah kava has more than plenty.

thank you for sharing this,

 

[kastom_lif]

Interesting. I assume this was from traditional grind powder.
A quick google shows that 200mg iron supplement tablets contain the equivalent of 65mg of elemental iron.
I wonder how many milligrams there are in your photo.

It would be interesting to try this with other kava products from KWK and other vendors.

Iron in supplements is usually something like iron(II) sulfate or iron(II) fumarate. Black sandy particles in soil, if they stick to magnets, are typically magnetite, or iron(II,III) oxide.

Not sure if magnetite is available biologically when eaten. Although it might be black sand, it's probably harmless to eat in small quantities.

 

[ThePiper]

Is this present because of that coveted volcanic soil?

 

[kastom_lif]

Is this present because of that coveted volcanic soil?

Maybe, though KWK cleans their roots well, as do most vendors. It might, instead, be traces of pulverised steel from the grinding process. Either way, a little bit isn't harmful.

 

[TheKavaSociety]

This could be of natural origin, but it's also not totally uncommon to see some tiny metal shavings in pounded kava. Kava pounding machines on the islands aren't exactly always of amazing quality and/or well maintained and when you run these pounders 12 hours a day 6 days a week with little maintainenece, things get a bit dicey.

Now, I am certainly not saying KWK would be OK with metal shavings in their kava and I am sure that they would love to investigate this batch and see if something might have gone wrong. All I am saying is that it's a fairly common problem. And again, it's possible the bits you see in your kava aren't actual metal shavings.

When I played around with juicing green kava the compliance officer at the research facility in Auckland rejected two Chinese-made juicers and one grinder I bought from alibaba precisely because he identified them as being at risk of adding micro bits of metal to the juice.

 

[The Kap'n]

When I played around with juicing green kava the compliance officer at the research facility in Auckland rejected two Chinese-made juicers and one grinder I bought from alibaba precisely because he identified them as being at risk of adding micro bits of metal to the juice.

Damn, now that is some one on one advisement on the fly right there. That's impressive.

 

[Kalm with Kava]

This is some really interesting stuff. I've seen this routinely over the years in my own mixing bowls but always chalked it up to dirt or something. Going to look into this further.

 

[kasa_balavu]

 

[fueledbykava]

This is some really interesting stuff. I've seen this routinely over the years in my own mixing bowls but always chalked it up to dirt or something. Going to look into this further.

Thanks! Super interested in what you find out.

 

[fueledbykava]

Out of my own curiosity, I've repeated this magnet experiment with other brands of Kava for comparison. Here's another popular vendor's kava, much less ferromagnetic material (presumably iron/iron-rich steel) as you can see.

 

[kavaaa]

I've noticed the tiny black specs in a lot of kava from many different vendors. I always wondered what it was, but it would make sense for it to be iron. I've seen black specs like that come out of breakfast cereal with the use of a strong magnet.

 

[fueledbykava]

This is some really interesting stuff. I've seen this routinely over the years in my own mixing bowls but always chalked it up to dirt or something. Going to look into this further.

Hey KWK, any updates on what you may have found??

 

[Intrepidus_dux]

I guess I'll never be anemic now.

 

[Crunked]

This could explain my magnetic personality.

 

[Cuzzie]

Just reading through this thread it doesn’t seem like most people are too concerned. I was curious and looked up the dangers of excess iron and it seems to be a health concern. Just posting what I found as an FYI in case anyone is concerned:

 

[The Kap'n]

 

[Crunked]

Yikes, I wanted to be an Iron Man, but not this way.

 

[Candiru1]

Any updates on this issue. I put a magnet in my vula waka and Pouni Ono this week and got iron oxide.